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WOMAN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUR 
LECTURE BY 
IRS. LARY WARE DENNETT 


APRIL 15th, 1919. 


SUBJECT - "Reconstruction and Birth Control." 


With a small group like this, of course it is a great 
temptation to be utterly conversational and not to say the kind of 
thing that will bear repetition to a larger group, and yet for the 


Saka of the larger group I think I will stick if possible to a form 
Suitable to them, | 


The question of birth rete and reconstruction is one 
that warrants the conclusion that no discussion of reconstruction can 
possibly be complete if it leaves out the birth rate, The war has in 
all the countries that it has touched directly and in most of the 
countries that it has touched indirectly reduced the birth rate. That 
is in itself a calamity or not according to circumstances. 


Under normal conditions it is many times possible to 
have the reduction of the birth rate a blessing and not a disaster, 
Eecause of the war the reduction of the birth rate is unquestionably 
a fearful and sad reflection of disaster. In central Europe in 
almost all the districts at present, from which we have records ths 
birth rate has now fallen below the civilian death rate, not in- 
cluding the actual losses in battle. In other words, war devastates 
Civilian population, a thing that isn't ordinarily taken enough into 
account. We think of the casualties of war as the killed and wounded 
and missing; we don't think of the casualties of war as the nervous 
prostration in men and women and, alas, in children. The extent of 
nervous prostration in Hurope is beyond anything that we know any- 
thing about. Our reports are still severely censored. In England 
they are less so, The truth is cropping out in papers like the 

London Nation which in the last three issues hag some utterly horrify- 
ing figures about what is happening in the civilian population in 
Germany, Austria, Poland and some of the other countries, 


I have a clipping here which gives these facts: "In 
Poland nervousness and nervous prostration have become so appalling 
that very few mothers Give birth to children caphble of surviving. 
Thus at the maternity hospital of Lemberg in two months only one in- 
fant survived out of 91 born." Here also was added: "The children 
cannot be made to attend school, The youths cannot be induced to 
do any work. The children play truant for days Snd weeks together, 
and the youths leave their homes for any trivial reason or none, 
Children and young people are constantly quarreling until they come 
to blows, They have no respect for their teachers, parents or 
elders;: they insult and abuse older people. Thieving is the common- 
est offense, Some children no doubt steel heoawuse they are hungry, 
but this is not always the motd4ve. At present 4dn Vienna there is an 
epidemic of thieving, 26 well as of nervousness and there are even 
organized gangs of child thieves in the Auntriam capital." 


Reports similar to that are comifhe from all over 
Hurope, There is what you migsht o211 chronic omd almost universal 
nervous vrostration. Quoting from the London N&tion I will give you 
one extract from a letter frota an old lady of s@venty-five in 
Hanover, She said: "The proocrtion of babies @ying before they are 
born and mothers not recoveritig has risen exces¢ively. Children 
‘are much smaller for their ages than they were."’ You see, she 
/spoke from a district that has known the war now from 1914 to 1919. 
She has a chance to say whether the children are undersized or not 
because the babies born in 1915 are now four yegrs old. "During 
the influenze epidemic babies died in such numbers that there were 
not coffins enough in which %o ‘bury them," 


Bs Quoting again from the London Nation:- "A school 
‘inspector in Berlin said; ‘Jt now takes a year! to teach a class of 
children what they would learn in two or three fmonths before the war,'' 


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Our country, of course, not heving been devastated like 
these countries, will not be able tto report horrors like that, but 
we have the authority of Dr. Josephine Raker the head of the Child 
Hygiene Department of our Board of Health here for the statement 
that when we had been in war six months the baby death rate had 
risen, The baby death rate is an absolute barometer of the social 
status. It is the most sensitive index there is, 


The New York Iiilk Committee uses on its envelope this 
statement: "If bebies were well-born end well-cared for their 
mortality could be negligible." 


Now we come to this question of re-population after the 
war, The cheap and easy and thoughtless demand is: "Fill the cradles 
to make up for the men who have been killed and injured." After 
a little bit of thought that proves to be the most futile demand 
that could possibly be made of a mature population. If babies are 
born from parents who are under such strain as follows the war, the 
babies are almost inevitably doomed to be handicapped and a burden 
to their parents and to the community. In other words, you cannot 
re-populate in a hurry. The loss of war is a loss; it must be faced; 
it cannot be made up quickly. There isn't any way to do it. People 
don't recover from nervous prostration readily. Our poverty and un- 
employment question cannot be settled in a twinkling, even with the 
very best possible brains of the few that are focussed upon it. The 
majority of people are mentally wallowing in the industrial question; 
they are not solving it, 


The real question isn't the birth rate or the drop in the 
birth rate, The real question is the relation of the birth rate to 
the death rate and particularly to the baby death rate. During the 
war Dr. Josephine Baker was quoted as saying: “It is three times as 
safe to be a soldier in the trenches as an American beby in the cradle", 
and she baéked it up by these figures, It was then reported that the 
losses in the allied armies averaged four out of a hundred soldicrs, 
The deaths of American bebies at that time were averaging twelve out 
of a nundred. So she was justified in her statement. 


There can be over-“population in a given family at any time 
when the parents are hendicapped by ill health or poverty so that 
they cannot give the children they have adequate care, and it makes 
no difference whether that family numbers two or twelve, there can 
be over-population in the femily of two if the parents are not equipped 
to give the babies what they ought to have. That is, the question of 
the maintenance of the birth rate is not one of figures, It is a 
question of values. It is a question of relationships, 


.In view of the war there not only will be but there ought 
to be a very deliberate lowering of the birth rate for a very large 
number of people. Of course there are people, economically speaking, 
who ought perhaps to proceed to have children and a good many of them, 
Those people who have made money out of the war are economically 
equipped at any rate to rear large families, One questions, though, 
whether it is worth while to propagate a lot of little profiteers, If 
their morals couldn't be improved as well as their material staths, 
it is a question if after all the traditional.small family of the 
rich better not be perpetuated a while yet until the rich have ac- 
quired a change of heart that will make the children they produce 
worth while, . 


There is a question however whether. the vast horde of 
people that is becoming unemployed, - these young soldiers who are 
coming back and have not the opportunity either to pick up their old 
roots or to make new ones if thoy were so young when they went away 
that they hadn't acquired roots, - whether those people should under- 
take in these uneasy times that are ahead of us anything like large 
families. It has been estimated that if one considered ordinary 
decent living conditions, it must cost $180 a year for each child 
from one to three years of age, and that the cost rises gradually to 
about 4350 a year at fourteen years of age. 


Now the birth of a baby cannot be well accomplished without 
expense, To do it exceedingly well, and I think it is the right of 


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every mother to have it exceedingly well done for her, - it ought to 
cost about $200, It doesn't take much arithmetic to see what it means 
in dollars and cents if families are going to be well-born. When we 
read that there are 25,000 neople out of work in a town like Buffalo 
in this state, isn't it asking a preposterous thing if we assume that 
+t is up to those people to make good war losses? Could anything be 
nore tragic than the state of-mind of @ man who has lost his job be- 
cause he was employed in a war industry, and has two or three little 
children, and an alien wife, to make the discovery that there is 
another baby coming? Could anything more hopelessly wreck the morale 
of a working man than a situation like that? What it means is that he 
and his wife and his babies ten to one will presently become a burden 
on the community and the cause of great misery to themselves. 


¥ AS recently as December 7th Frank Walsh of the War Labor 
S0erd gave these statements. He defines a living wage as the amount 
of wage upon which a worker and his family may be able to subsist in 
health and reasonable comforts, This definition was accepted by the 
var Labor Board as a good theoretical statement, but when it came to 
putting it into practice Walsh said: "We hed more difficulty in 
“pplying that principle then anv other. Three-fourths of the common 
laborers of this country had not been getting enough to eat. They had 
seen their children go into industry and a great number of them were 
compelled to take in borders ta‘add to the family income," The War 
labor Board found itself squarely up against the system of economic 
vapitalism which had been exploiting ‘workers and starving the children 
for these many years, After studying the budgets in all wage hearings 
of jate years a decision was made by the staff of the War Lebor Board 
that the minimum on which a worker with a family of six children of 
echool ages could live was $34,80 a week, That rate of wages per week 
meang over $1700 for a full time year, It is a wage of $7 a day. The 
experts reached the conclusion that this minimum was the least upon 
"hich a man, wife and children could maintain health and decency, but 
when the War Labor Board turned to the industries dominated by 
American plutocracy they found themselves helpless, As Walsh put it: 
"When we attempted to put that into effect it was impossible to do so. 
ihe whole structure of our industrial life was based upon so low a 
wage level that if this increase had been made it would practically 
jouble the common lebor rate prevailing." 


Now those are facts, To expect parents to have large families 
“n the face of those facts is expecting something that ought not to 
appen, 


There is another very serious question that women particularily 
rhoudd pay attention to with regard to our young soldiers on their 
return. liost of our army is of the marriage age;- 21 to 31 1s pre- 

Minently the mating period. Our men in the camps and cantonments here 

-efare they went to war were protected in an unprecedented way from 
\Gnureal infection, What infection they had, there was herculean 

| effort made.to cure. tit was marvelously successful too. Then they 

vent over to the other side and at first were regimented right with 

the allied armies which hed nothing like such a standard as hed existed 

‘nm our armies, The results were bad. The results since the signing 

of the armistice had been very bad indeed, It was reported by 2 Red 

‘ross worker recently that there were nineteen profilaxis(?) stations 

in activity in Paris alone, and that they were averaging one thousand 
rreatments a day for infection among the soldiers of our army. That 

“as since the signing of the Armistice, 


Now every intelligent person knows the danger of the venereal 
snfection to the next generation, Our men as I said before are the 
oung men, If they are not married already ten to one most of them 
{11 marry promptly on their return, If they and their wives are not > 
sife-guarded by the knowledge of how to postpone their babies until 
-he infection danger period from disease is passed, it is going to mean 
une more wretched additional needless reflex from the war in the pro- 
luction of an added number of infected and handicapped babies, Now 
'3 perhaps the one time in all our whole history that our young pavents . 
caught to be equipped with knowledge as to how to regulate the size OF 
-heir families to suit their conditions of health and earnings. 


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_ ‘The question of underfeeding in the school as revealed 
by School investigators has been abeorbing 9 great desl of the 
attention of those interested in philanthropy and welfare, I myself 
heard one New York City sehool teacher whose school was in one of 
the poorest districts of the city say thet she didn't think she was 
making a, oarsless statement at ell when she said thet ninety percent 
of the children in her class were underfed, Is it worth while to 
add to this collection of underfed children; does it do any good; 
does it make the children hoppy; does it make the parents happy; 
does it help the cormunity? 


It is absolutely true thet very ofton the way to save a 
boby's life..is to postpone the baby's birth until conditions ere 
right for that beby to come, Otherwise the baby life is wasted, 
The rate at which the beby lives are wasted is dismelly and cone- 
prehensively shown by the wonderful collection of reports issued by 
Julis Lathrop from the Children's Bureau. Her annuel report has 
Just com? out. In that she gives a chart in the form of a ther- 
mometer which shows the relation of the beby death rate to the 
father's wages. Her reports cover the cases of 23,000 babies in 
eight cities, so they sare not guesses; they are not exceptional 
conditions; they are averages, and this is what she proves;- thet 
in a group where the father's wages are less than $5@0 a yeur one 
out of every six babies tics; where the father's wagas go up to 
$1260 @ year tho babies die only et the rete of one in sixteen, 
There is the inevitable conelusion, you see, that wherever there 
is excessive poverty babies are wasted. 


We have been taught religiously and patriotically the 
gospel of conservation during all this war period. We were taught 
to plant war gardens. Explicit directions were given to us to 
plant the seeds so rany inches deep, so many inches apart, with 
Suchand such conditions of enrichment. Anattagous knowledge for 
the producing of the little hunan crop ts -not.available legally, 
The only way it can be had is by breaking the law. The law which 
makes this knowledge illegal is, I think, the most disgusting piece 
of literature in the English language. I should hesitate very much 
tO read’ at to you,, It is a long parareravh of very fine print.” The 
one I hold in my hand is the federal statute on which all of the 
state laws which prohibit this information dre modeled, They all 
use exactly the sare type of language. The phrase "prevention of 
conception" is drovped in, separated only by a coma, with all of 
the immoralities and indecencies of life that could possibly be 
thought up by anybody. The language in the worde of the New York 
Times is) “utterly unfit to) print”.) That law, of course, is a 
prodigous and wicked insult to all of the parents in the United 
States, and we are the only large country that disgraces itself by 
penalizing this information. 


It is an anazing thing that any citizen in the United 
States can write to the Department of agriculture and have for 
the asking innumerable pamphlets on the raising of plants and 
animals for social benefit, and cannot write to a single govern-~ 
ment department and get that same knowledge with regard to the 
producing of their own children, the nost precious crop there is. 


The Children's Bureau you naturally would think ought 
to be able to supplement these dismal statistics that it produces 
with recormendations for the cure of the conditions, and yet the 
hest it can do is to patch up the babies after they come into the 
world. It cannot say one word about the prevention of the starting 
of those little lives that ought not to come until conditions are 
right for then, 


It is well knowm that what has broken down nany of the 
large strikes where the workers were struggling for an existence 
wage has been the man with the overlarge family - the man who 
simply could not endure it when his babies cried for milk and bread. 
That man, of course, in the strike was the victim of a situation 
which he did n6t deliberately produce, He simply ignorantly 
found himself in a situation like that where he was, you night say, 
submerged by the numbers of his own fanily. 


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We think of war as producing all of these results that 
make us think so hard at just this juncture, but we have to remember 
that if the war had not come we should have this problem just the 
Same and have it very seriously. | 


ie The other evening when Prof. Zooblin (?) was speaking 
here in New York on race recuperation he gave these very striking 
facts - that in our mining industry only four and one-half percent 
of the fatal accidents come from big disasters that make headlines 
in the newspapers; that forty-nine percent of the fatal accidents 
come from the daily happenings of the mines that are taken as a 
matter of course, and that the miners! death rate is higher than the 
soldiers' death rate has been in the army, That is what we are 


doing in daily civilian life. It has nothing whatever to do with 
the war, 


In repopulating, if we are intelligent, we have got to 
make haste slowly. There isn't any other way. In France before the 
war, I think it was in 1913, there was a good deal of public concern 
at the great decrease in the birth rate. France had the popular 
reputation of being a dying-out race. As a matter of fact up to 
the war the birth rate in France never dropped below the death rate. 
There has been a fairly steady but small increase in the population 
in France since the seventy!'s, and before that there had been a 
higher increase, I think. At this time there was a good deal of 
agitation and certain rewards and bonuses and whatnot were offered 
to veople for having large families, and there was a good deal of 
propaganda, so that it did speed up the birth rate, but what it also 
did was more than increase the baby death rate, so that the number 
of survivors was no more than before they had done this artificial 
process, 


Precisely the same thing happened in Ontario, quite a 
number of years ago. People. ofthe Roosevelt type argued in behalf 
of gigantic families. It became a duty in the minds of a great 
many peorple. They did precisely what France tried and all they 
succeeded in doing was to increase the baby death rate. Whieh 
proves that unless parenthood is intelligent + unless conditions 
are right for the babies, it does no good to produce them, They 
are simply wasted; they die, and everybody concerned is depleted 
by the process, and there is only one way to increase the number of 
survivors, and that is to have the conditions of birth right for 
the babies. They they can survive, and not otherwise, 


On just the same principle that we say that saving is 
earning, we have a right to say that sometimes avoiding children is 
saving, 


It wouldn't be complete, I suppose, to discuss recon- 
struction and the birth rate and leave out the term Bolshevism, It 
is too universal and too popular, and go I will put it in. Never 
mind defining Bolshevism, but if your point of view is such that 
Bolshevism means to yow some sort of mad red terror that will devas* 
tate the earth, a good antidote for it, or a partial antidote at 
any rate, will be to use all your might and influence to get these 
laws changed and get this information to the people in order that 
they ray sufficiently steady their own nerves and rationalize 
their own thought by being free of maddening care and desperation. 
People who are hungry and sick and over-burdened may not pe able to. 
think sanely in a social crisis. They may do the desperate thing. 
Therefore, from the point of view of conservatism, it would be wise 
to let this information reach the masses of the labor people of the 
United States. . 


If, on the other hand, your conception of Bolshevism is 
different - if it means to you an interesting, brave, heroic reach 
toward an ideal social order, then equally the people need this 
information by which they can regulate their own destinies and the 
size of their families, in order that they may be efficient and 
well equipped in the struggle to produce the new social order. It 
is seldom that a thing works both ways as neatly as that. 


eat, 


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The conservative has every reason for saying "amen" to 
this program to get counter-conceptive information into the hands 
of the people who need it, The radical has every reason for wishing 
precisely the same thing. That is just another way of saying that 
what this thing means is human welfare. It is a great humanitarian 
Proposition, but during all these years since the seventy's this 
information has bemdirtied and besmirched and degraded not only by 


being prohibited but by being called bad names in the phraseology 
of the law, 


That law has stood on the Statuge books all these years 
not because anybody really wanted it there, but because people © 
have been inhibited from changing it, They have been enbarrassed 
with the whole question, They shrink away from anything like 
responsible action in regard to any matters that have to do with 

Sex, The taboo, however, is wearing thin now, I think the tine 
13 not far away when it will disappear not wholly but in some of 
these larger and more important ways, 


A wonderful step in the shedding of embarrassments and 
inhibitions was taken by the American people when they responded to 
the appeal of the army authorities to help stamp out venereal dis- 
ease in the army, Ten or fifteen years ago I am sure you remeriber 
that one didn't speak of venereal disease except in whispers, and 
those who did insist upon speaking about it were somehow or other, 
if they were not medical people or professional people, considered 
bold and ill-bred. But.look what happened when. the war put its 
grip upon us, It made people do things they had thought they 
never could do before, The army authorities and the public health 
Service put out quantities of literature of appeal 40) the e2vil 
population to co-operate with them in keeping down venereal dis- 
ease in the camps and cantonments. There were special pamphlets 
for all sorts of peopie,- for parents, for the soldiers themselves, 
for the young girls, for leaders of opinion of all sorts, and the 
response was marvelous, People forgot that they were embarrassed 
by that subject. They did what they thought théy ought to do. 
Having done it for that question, they surely can with equal ease 
and a sense of responsibility do it for this question, 


. Beyond all questions of immediate betterment and re- 
construction is another great benefit. that will come from taking 
this step that has been so criminally postponed, If the question 
of the conception and birth of children becomes a matter of clean 
Science, parents will have taken the first btg@ step in cleaning 
up their thought and feeling and living in regard to sex, They 
will have taken the first step toward educating themselves and 
the next generation to standards and thoughts and creative 
faculties, such as we have never known before and such as we ought 
to know, | 


In matters relating to sex we are more backward, more une 
-developed, more ignorant and more perverted than we are in any 
' other phase of our lives, The time has surely come in this up- 
heaval of thought, this naking of new programs, for us to realize 
that this is one of the foundations not only of our personal lives 
but of the whole social structure. We.rcan't afford to be irres- 
ponsible about it. This will give us an opportunity for a new 
understanding, for a readjustment of values, moral and physical 
and spiritual, (Applause). 


QUESTION - I would like to ask how long it has been since 
there has been known any absolutely certain counter-ceptive? 


IRS. DENNETT - It is an imperfect science, 


QUESTION - There are different kinds t6 suit different 
human beings, but it is still a matter of experinent, isn't it? 


; li.S. DENNETT + The best answer to that, I think, is 
that it is not taught in any of our medical schools. It never 
will be until it is legal for the doctors to give the information. 


QUESTION - And then even it will be an experiment? 


LGA, CohG a aaa Sali 
(coy Nt Amat ar ye Ao: Wee 
: phn any ue 

et Cathar aie dh: ‘nige tag he $8 parle rf 
at priest: ey ae + OTTO 
eke an e Pee Fett Bi aS me 

‘pp ots ge UIs YQ spire arr te Caaeey eee it 

Cee ce bots sqno: AGE lg oie ae Rie 

as Big Pass x 1; ne ad. bell os ie: ak od 


sk ae rf 


i 


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+ r es ; * ; % \ 1 : ‘3 Ki v ; % ae. . 
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et a: oa ee ii Pitty afood sae Bagh “he D9 .t es 

ail das rh ee iden need 


M3 af oc ay Ge nae! 


; abs 2.8 TEESE 
, ay 


4p isd Naa | hae a | ™ hy iby a MA ; A ree 
Part MO vat cae th aT ee mgs Roe si 
Me grata alt! ye Wy t ae ee ae wee ALE mle a eres 
” A en Big ; 1 %, ” , rare Ae 
Ro bs ee Owa y Sekt vf oem ea Ay MES OF rong vt ‘not 
ots di OP as em, kas ae set coe rego’ or 
ery Ceara ak aM WAL f nel i PAN TAS RN a. co iw te HS site Pee 
shite? ante oa . 4g AA ‘ ‘i at ye Vaid: poet am fF al brs. 


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uo 


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4% b i 2 Na F ne tan ; fe | hi ini i i « y Kean , Hy ‘ fey ee jee 
Ae a “hele GN EO i - x ; 
ds tie a. La eerie a4 o TON) BCE “oye: Hee ted amt? af revi $9 oo veg 
ie “¥ ce aa hs fy ee eR ae fe ay thy Bet TOgte now aT es he A 8 aqoroess ; eport, 4 
‘ae ORL Peet ie alte Bt] Cy pe ihc 1a gators 


- 
* 


mips? Pe et a ab aren Wl ie 

‘ as tlaps at eu a ds enti tae tg, sees” Os Cioceagan pnt ~ signed to | 
re x“ 2 re : a8 kale, furs fre : * ; 

ee aha babe ae © conbitet, THO TO! Maetiy oF Ort “po eer ST ser 14 Oe a y ren 3 at 

. ‘ Bn sey asi Laue ne an SD ee Pts 


a gy 
phe Tt ah 


P oe fie sae ‘pe fhe! 
adi ad es Maha OF ah gi a) 


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7 2 BOR PR, Bites erat, Bo 0 erat 16: ont -: oa 
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liRS, DENNEDT » It need not be experimental, if our 
medical profession will give it the same proportionate attention 


that it has given to other questions of hygiene.and preventative 
medicine. 


7? QUESTIUnN = Well, I heard Dr. Goldwater say publicly 

that the reason why he wanted this law repealed was for experi-~ __. 
mentation, and I don't approve of that because I feel that in the. 
meantime they wouldn't tell the mother that. They would give her 
false security, and therefore she would be misled, and become a 
mother perhaps without her consent or willingness, and therefore 
they would defeat their own ends in that way. It is not a known 
Science, and there is no absolutely sure counterceptive; they have 
all failed in certain cases, 


So the law is a good one in some ways, Now, of course, 
I will be probably looked upon as very old-fashioned by sone 
people, but I dontt think that absolute license that is given by 
this knowledge is a good thing, 


ERS, DENNETT - You have brought up two points which need 
answering. One is that people could hardly be any worse off than 
they are now, There is no such thing as keeping people without 
some information. They are getting it secretly. A large part of 
the information that is handed around in whispers is inadequate and 
some of it is harmful. There is only one way out and that is fur- 
ther education on the subject. We can't. ¢o back, We can't take 
what information people have away from them. It is true, as I 
Said, that the science isn't perfect, but imperfect as it is, it 
is better -than stark ignorance on the subject. 


The other point you have brought upiis with regard to 
morality. It is the question that comes up inevitably in this dis- 
cussion. It is the question that all the New York legislators 
asked me when I interviewed themsin. January. It was question No.2 
generally, Their first question wag that of race suiédide.” They 
were afatmed for fear there would be no more babies, That is very 
easiiy enswered too by the simple statement that in the countries 
where there is no restrictive legislation like ours the ration of 
increases in the population is very highs In other words, it is 
not a race suicide program as it works out. 


Now as to the question of morals. The picture that is in 
the minds of a great many people is that of tunnumerable young girls 
promptly going to the devil, I am always impressed with the fact ti: 
that people are so exorbitantly worried over the young girls and 
seem to leave the yourig men out of the question. It is an inter- 
esting facti The answer to that is this. It is a double answer, 
First, in the countries where no such restrictive legislation 
6Xists asx we have, there is no record of social disaster, There 
is no evidence of debauchery amoung the young. Quite the contrary 
Holland and New sealand are the two best instances of countries 
where information makes parenthood voluntary and not accidental, 
and in those countries their generql welfare statistics make a 
better showing than in any other countries of the world, In Holland 
for instance, there is the lowest general death.rate and the lowest 
baby death rate of any country in Hurope, The rich average larger 
families and the poor smaller families than any other country in 
Burope, That means thattHolland is approaching a norm in its 
Social conditions, Holland had a larger proportion of fit men in 
its army than any other country in Europe. Its health rate is 
excellent, 


Lr the second answer is true that a large proportion of 

. our young people are so lacking in standards and anchorage and ~ 
character and strength and good taste that they would inevitably 

go to vieces morally if they had this information, the only con- 
cldsion we can make is that it is a fearful and most serious in- 
dietment upon us, the elders, who have brought them up and who are 
bringing them up. It is our fault. We set the standards; we allow 
their ignorance; we allow the thing that produces these results 
that we fear, It is a revelation of the fact that we have been too 
indifferent, too lazy, too erbarrassed; too inhibitive to do our 
duty in the training of these young people, so that their standards 
will be such as will bring health and happiness and self-respect 


eo : + eke , oy ray t aes gaits x 
Se ee ee 
RS ey Come PR Ee m9 a ie oe 
bie fart eaeny bh oy HH ist mY owt, j Pale 


wears “BeOS Set Ae ou aber ety ait bE ay 7a) nt ey 
: | ayelor det ind Pann ees bv to rTaseiino! a 
REA 2 Cin el aL TN th tants ae woe) ne 
ey ey rBs a Nua te ¥4 pare “Ait ry Eee Le ° Sinise i uranite bantins, fi 
HU RE a Me MR EIAL TC Dua Ra vee on 
Sg vile ie sh wig 4 ae ‘By aly yas NOME: NS 


Bpar,uk PP as Sone fous aria ie Ne way 4 | 
ial Ne ni nee ty: i) ‘ chal ee sont. TERS am es ip 


- 
* 


ys We 4 ‘ 5 ; 
vil aera 2 
x 


eRe Ope ate Atarog: ony tus toned ead ee 
Se ‘ned ‘ We Pa rod REE: dd, Au Ne ES evabal 8, Aiavke “Sido ne A 
ORR rire AD EO ONY ac ber dag adi ANE TOR oLT Sree fer i 
er itimgl eteahe Lili le ack ie. io | 
Pats th Ors Ok Re tt Oy. ir aE rp tA 
oa Tuts a, od sg ket hh neh art mee eto: ee 
GR ear ee yaa Ba bias 
‘ ‘apie | Ot ue 
ae ) 
yds 


Ce Roath aleuel 


math 8 bay. +d p ant dot pia a SPY, Gh Re RT, ay is” 
e fa ah oie eattont ‘ pe sf inp \ ? if : y Win aly 


Pier ‘7 
ror oc Fatt sso taad | dita ai: 
OES Baar oe" at a “ ant ul . renee s00, ‘Share 


~ res ‘t 5 ‘en 
Ys MME 


t debs ad ot ot awed eee Bh tia oot 
& ayes fy ; y Man tigl ¢ 2 « any i 4 oa ; nna Balt | ie Mies ne) i i 


nu % hs bi Ae CORE a a \ VEE, oe te A ait x vif) ae ty 4 i 


i AL MC vane fate pie 2 ety uli ae 


aK: pont bal uh 
unt by i v Ney wi kK 
notes ef iy 
aes at e 
| dobre et | Weetintans 
Ed. fet ome, 10: har eH) on: 1) Bore SAP ued 
Vy tee gal ul BG yi Fi re aie - a Ang br yet vane 16 18, 
OEM RI Ber! LG Rett y ih i mene ot ee 


Shey Bae Bi hee: tye fis 


RO Saas Wa ME Dog 2 BN 

Bee NE 6 ce Cah at vi 3 

a ep ate oe ee iB 
‘ui ey rt th | 
ee oe py fp: : hae ay bo! ¥ 
COE ear Timea ls Gein y say cto hc tnt re eocaok E 

ae is RD aeaecerah Wit bso ort Vege het 

tee! d ) | 


ps, a tort biatentenyen, ont 
eMst bee Bacnodn ie | Bes 
ae Doi Soe eer 


ery / ; AG, 


a vem i omen 
i BN: Ae f Ht 


=~ Bu 


to them, It means that we have work ahead of us ‘Gnataie ali, ~The 
safety zone is always on the further side of education, not the 
nearer side, and ignorance is never synonymous with virtue and 
never a safeguard, | 


QUESTION + Well, but we know that those conditions 
exist whether we wish to deny them or not, Human nature has been 
weak in the young no matter what training they have had, The 
weakness is exhibited and we can't deny that. Who&s fault it 
i$ we won't question, but by removing all restrictions we certain- 
ly don't improve conditions to my mind. However, I have a theory 
that marriage is too easy, and I think there is too much license 
in marriage being permitted amongst unfit people, and I believ> 
that these returning soldiers shouldn't be permitted to narry 
if they have venereal disease. I think the fate of the woren 
they marry is just as important as the fate of the possible 
children that they may have, and I was very much impressed by a 
very Short article in the recent number of the Ilaryland Sufferage 
News which speaks of the new marriage laws in Norway, and I would 
be very much favored if you would read the article or permit me 
to read it. It is very short and might interest you, and I think 
that it is something we should think about - making marriage 
harder and perhaps divorce easier,. , 


They have eighty-one clauses in the new marriage law 
&n Norway which was put into operation in January; these are just 
afew of the clauses, 


DRS. DENNETT = May I vreface the reading of this with 
the statement that there is no restrictive legislation on the 
subject of counterceptive knowledge in any of the Scandinavian 
countries, 


QUESTION = Well, thereis a decidedly great restriction 
in thevpermission of people with venereal disease to marry. 


"A man under twenty and a woman under eighteen may not 
marry without the consent ofthhe authorities, Birth and baptism 
certificates must be produced before the names are published, 
Under certain conditions one or both of the contracting parties 
may be required to show that they have not been insane. Both 
must declare in writing that they are not suffering fron @pilepsy, 
leprosy, syphilis, or other venereal disease in an infectious 
form, In the other alternative the subject of any of these dis- 
eases must prove that the other party to the marriage contract is 
cognizant of the fact, and that both parties have been instructed 
by a doctor as to the dangers of the disease in question, The 
doctor conoerned is not to be tied by professional secrecy and is 
_bound to interfere if he knows that any one of these diseases is 
being concealed by either side. 


A written declaration must also be given by the cane 
didates for marriage, as to previous marriages and as to children 
born to them out of wedlock. The marriage may be nullified if 
it is subsequently proved that insanity or any of the above dis- 
eases have been concealed or if an incurable, morbid condition 
incompatible with married life exists. 


Dissolution of the marriage may also be clained if 
false delcarations have been made or obstacles concealed, Again 
if the woman has become prepnant by another man or if the man 
has rendered another woman pregnant and this has not been revealed, 
dissolution of the marriage may be claimed whether the child of 
this illegal union be born before or after the marriage. Such a 
claim must be made within six months after the facts become known 
py the claimant. 


Miany other causes are defined’ as valid for the dis- 
solution of marriage, and it is evident that henceforth in Norway 
it will often ve difficult to marry in haste, and the facilities . - 
for escaping from a hasty ill-judged marriage will prove to be 
numerous and varied," 


It seems very: revolutionary, put Stihl te think dries 
step in the right direction. I think it will help a great deal 


; Say ey 


* “@ tay a tae, 


ye Lene it sso i fy dott ye 
a Rigor Det nore me on: 
ade). fae ave! yon) abe ar ee 
t's HLUsT OR ONY |, Pah. bak ol ue Us i 
: Sap eal eros rotate. ifa' paarentooa ei 
iar Oona Ue aWhesks T tne Vawoll Brg: PE, Bake Repay TO 
| enone fins Cod ig rath Arend SB a ER 004 
i ees ey Ola ond: Elen. Te yc bert raned 
PO eb! ey bett inom of. Fok Luols eek of 40 i 
at ONY orth TG aay, oree AnkNY Ta opesevap Laeren 
nldieeod ot) Yo eg est any ihe bepayditeesty ef 
cog) ipo one ite! ody YVrov Bow ine Meh as, 
OCS TIE HS Yew Loe Vols todrinn $e9909, oat | 
SON OT bens meet Le eepre t) e Oy he nett, weet | aay cn tole 
USE Ao SLOLP RY ody Reed bf asow Moy. rei beaovet 
PbS TT io Ra. CaO eh a ng epee! hl ae hans’ Pvodies Sate tod 
' PASI EN QALoL BT ow dhshehdull dare? eyes a and dere Ns, 
; ; A are } th i tet Ps eqatre 8 [ 
: nef Re TOM, MAN at ne tannets re 
TURIN ARE eB Agr tn ot ape qe ine 890 eg nh 
. OPS wo hn antbs he ve eee at penuh 
AN Ett a aay a a eby of avktot Pte eas Oa he, oe tla 
DUBIN i ch dyn lv ioe ahd i) ARE ne arb: sta Svt ie | 
‘ s ) 


yatd 


ger insite a 


> A cy iy i f ; if Mi (i WEN wit 
“ton ten destints mebral ROW g bone vtoors | 
; “mb ty ined’ Be dg the . » Hangs Meo hin: anttir to. dnewnon a 
ae abonagt Gh OU POE ohh pale gh ‘beouhord. hie 


fe et Nhe ste: qnte ge: aa ae ent » mide te Moe! re odds bey 
Wek ; Lute A ik Mi Bee Ee ay ea: it* 2 a Ries 
yen figs moat ache tive Son eiallvada ane oaks cm 
“auottss es HG laps) orneetb: Leet ey: ston to bi 
F ” ; By 9 bad Lom " Qn bol 
1 (er TE "ie daa: ye Ht f 
| arcoib att "to aor ae Pi OR ITE, 
Seaton AM DOLE sed. 9) sen) ae beneeoto 
Sto MAE Pett: Fae get pb sietredar io 
k | a a: i } ie 4 f a 4 ores te : Me ih 
4 nt ieee: 
a Xoo. anti ‘trl pt a in mt oF Mile aide ap hesnata as 
; Nagitivtov e+ He has Roms + “cia BYOL Pome: OF) 
: Dh Pie £ Cites Aacsebe oy det a eT | ) 
Oy A di ayo aie art 4 haved teak. es vit if AL ye it 8 < Ubtasupessue j 
mo otebaon hs heron abe sun eee P Redo! ae ig 
) ie ly ae id oto ane elven Att 
er heraier a ae pete: a a ds seule dd : 
Ahan hel Sspcos bat oudedo re Metall a 
x Taide yi af TO: eben | | 


ae 

oleh alt ox M 

iain ps ia drioieae ais 
es Si ipl koa: baky tir 


iy ney te Fa din itl 


~Qe 


to regulate the birth rate of proper progeny, and also the difficulty 
in the alteration of our present law that the dissemination of this 
knowledge will be given to people who ought to have children. I 
heard a letter written from a mother who had prize babies and she 
was writing for that knowlddge. She didn't want any more, Well, 
eugenically speaking, we shouldn't restrict prize baby-bearing, 


LRS, DENNETT - You have brought up a point that always 
comes up, and that is ag to whether there is any kind of legislation 
that can make a people who presumably ought to rear children have 
them, and make the people who ought not to have children go without 
then. I don't think myself that there is any kind of legislation 
to accomplish this purpose, Hducation can do it and it is the only 
thing in the world that can accomplish it. It isn't the function of 
legislation to attempt that kind of thing. This law that we have 
now is probably without any question an unconstitutional law, It 
is an infringement of free speech, It is utterly undemocratic. It 
1s thoroughly contrary to the principles on which this country was 
founded, However, it can probably be more easily amended by pressure 
on the ground of public health than it can on the ground of un- 
constitutionality, 


QUESTION - You spoke about the death rate of babies in 
France, Can you tell us anything about Germany during the war 
period? : 


MRS, DUNNET - Germany had acquired the reputation during 
the war of being an overpopulated countryjamned to its borders with 
a seathing mass of people who needed a place in the sun. It was 
a very sketchy and misleading picture, In the first place Germany 
is not overcrowded physically. There are as yet no countries in 
the world that are actually overcrowded, If they had a just aand 
system by which the weople could have access to natural resources 
with fair opportunity, there is as yet no country in the world that 
would be in the least overcrowded. As a matter of fact Germany had 
not so large a population per square mile as Belgiun. 


Another correction of the popular misconception about 
Germany is that the birth rate in Gernany has been very rapidly 
falling ever since the seventy's just as it had in atl the countries 
in western Europe, and just previous to the war the birth rate in 
Germany was about the sane as that in France. France had the re- 
putation of being an overpopulated country, and yet facts don't 
warrant either conclusion. Since the war the birth rate has dropped 
in Germany terribly just. as it has in the other warring countries. 


QUESTION - Don't you think what is really wrong with our 
whole social structure is that we expect from our girls decency and 
we don't always ask it from the boys? Has that ever struck you? 


IRS, DENNETT - That is surely one difficulty, I think 
another serious difficulty is that we don't“clearly enough, know 
what decency is. 


QUESTION -.I don't see why a mother wants her girl to 
marry in the 'teens and don't want her boy to marry until he is 
forty. That is one of the wrong things we have got. In the 
neighborhood in which I live, I see’ all young men single from twenty 
up to forty, and all the girls run off and get married, and some of 
them are only nineteen and twenty. I believe that they should marry 
young. I think the mating calling is between twenty and thirty 
and not at forty. 


Rus. DENNETT - I think you have brought up a point there 
that is very true and very fundamental. Our economic conditions 
are such that in what we might call the middie class - I hate to 
use that germ, but everyone understands what is meat by it ~- in 
what we might call the middle class the tendency is to later and 
later marriage. In the late twenty's or early thirty's. There is 
no kind of evolution in sight by which the physical maturity of the 
race is coming later than it used to, I tthink you are quite right 
that it is a much more desirable situation that when these young 


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people reach the age at which they naturally fall in love they 
Should marry. It is not true that they should necessarily have 
their families before they can take care of then. They ought 

to have the privilege of mating, and the joy of getting adjusted 
to each other, and building a fine foundation not only for their 
own lives together but an adriirable preparation econonic and 
Otherwise for the babies, and then have them at reasonable inter- 
vals so that they are not snowed under by the rapidity of the 
increase in the family. 


QUESTION - How many worien have realized one thing that 
i have noticed in my life - that this generation is not able to 
nurse their babies, and I had ten and nursed them all. They lack 
mineral salts in their food and that we got when we were gmall. 
How many girls do you imow that can nurse their babies. Every 
worian you see is putting a bottle into her baby's nouth. What 
does it mean? She can have a baby every year. We women had our 
children two and three years apart and didn't use anything. I 
have had four years between my children because I nursed then, 


DRS, DENNETT - I wish that were a rule that were 
Capeatibe YOr luniversal.applications butidteisnit. 


We have, of course, avery large problen there. It is 
another question from that of the birth rate, but it is a very 
valuable question and an important question surely, 


QUESTION - I dread the point that has been brought up 
in that connection about permitting the doctors to experiment. 
They naturally would assure the wonan that she is secure in what 
they suggest. 


IRS DENNETT - Pardon me, you are mistaken about that. 
I know of no physicians that have done research work on this sub- 
ject that would be rash enough to. oO that 'T hoywarewaLiwof..ther 
exceedingly cautious in their statements. 


QUESTION - But I heard Dr. Goldwater make the statement 
that they wanted to make experinents. 


IRS. DENNETT - What he means is that until this in- 
formation can be legally imperted by the physicians to people it 
will not be studied in the medical schools and there will not be 
sustained clinical data prepared and collected from which con- 
clusions can be given. In that sense all clinical work and re- 
search work is experimental, It gives you a very misleading 
picture to think of physicians rashly experimenting, and as you say, 
not being frank with vatients,. 


QUESTIONS + But there will be shysicians who will do it, 
verhaps a cheaper class who might be tempted to profiteer in that 
way and will do it particularly in poor neighborhoods. This would 
be given to the woman as an absolute security and she might be- 
lieve it and rely on it, and be put to considerable trouble in 
that way. | 


IRS, DONNETT - We don't avoid that kind of situation by 
clinging to our present condition, and the way to antidote that 
situation that you have outlined is to have the subject released 
from legal prohibition as quickly as possible, and then to de- 
velop the kind of public opinion that will demand that the finest 
scientists who have studied the cuestion shall at once vroceed to 
teach it ihn the medioal schools and to publish technical ramphlets 
and books in language for the professional men and have a laymen’s 
editipn of it for the layrien, and to get that widely circulated 
through all the natural health agencies and welfare channels Such . 
as clinics, hospitals, dispensaries, the federal health service, 
the children's bureau, the charity organization, societies and 
so forth. If that is done, the less intelligent, cormercially. 
minded physician will have mighty little chance, and there is no 
way to cut the less worthy redical men out of business except for 
the finer men in the profession to see to it that their informa- 
tion reaches the people and reaches then widely. 


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QUESTION - Isntt it true that in England they have sort 
of 4 governmental system under government auspices? 


MRS, DENNETT - Not quite that. The Malthusian League 
gives this information to the married or about to be married on 
“application, and you ean hardly say that their work is approved by 
the government, The governrent takes no part in it, but it is 
permitted without restriction. In Holland the situation is very 
much better. The service there - the information - is given at 

52 clinics, which exist in that small country, and it is given to 
all the people who need it and apply for it by trained nurses and 
physicians, and in Holland these clinics which were started by the 
Malthusian League have had the expressed approval of the govern- 
ment. It has been called by the government a public service 
activity. I can see no value in attempting to limit it in that 
way to the married. 


QUESTION - aren't the @octors the strongest opponents 
to having this? 


URS, DENNETT - No, the doctors.- the medical profession 
as a whole, is probably rather slow and reactionary on this sub- 
ject. If they had wanted to take initiative on it they would have 
done it years and years ago, The laws have stayed unamended for 
forty years. There are some very brilliant and fine exceptions 

in the medical profession, + men who stood out and have worked 

hard to make public opinion on this subject. The profession as 

4 whole is moving now faster than it has previously. Thé@ con- 
ditions are encouraging. 


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